The Margate School has signed a partnership agreement with Esä, l’École Supérieure d’Art Dunkerque-Tourcoing art school.
TMS is the only institution in the UK with a French art school accreditation partnership for Fine Art postgraduate study.
It means students at both art schools will be part of a hybrid graduate programme with joint workshops, exhibitions and research projects.
The partnership will provide The Margate School with a European recognised accreditation framework, the European Credit Transfer System (ECTS), for its MA in Fine Art: Art Society Nature.It will also include residencies, exchange visits and projects.
On Wednesday 7 June a delegation from The Margate School – which included Maz Stuart, academic coordinator; Rebecca Truscott-Elves, tutor, Uwe Derksen, director and Dominic Rose, darkroom coordinator and student – travelled to Dunkerque with Margate mayor Cllr Rob Yates to take part in the signing of the partnership agreement.
Also present at the signing ceremony were the Esä heads Anne Rivollet and Martial Chmielina Verschaeve of the Dunkerque and Tourcoing campuses, students and staff; Mayor of Dunkerque and deputy mayor for culture and Hélène Dinh, a representative of the Straits Committee. It was the first visit by the Mayor of Dunkerque and a representative of the Straits Committee to Esä.
The agreement was signed by Uwe Derksen and Thierry Heynen as directors of their respective art schools, TMS and Esä.
En route to the signing, the TMS contingent were treated to a visit to the contemporary art gallery FRAC, to view the installation in progress of Chaleur Humaine, which focuses on cross border space.
At the ceremony, Uwe said: “This is a very important occasion for The Margate School. A moment, I believe, that will shape the future of The Margate School.”
Thierry added: “Since Art, Society and Nature unite us, The Margate School and Esä have decided to work together on the creation of a hybrid graduate programme to prepare our students for the DNSEP ART in Art, Society and Nature.
“TMS students will also be Esä students, and at the Margate, Dunkirk and Tourcoing sites we will be developing joint workshop projects, exhibition projects and research projects … “While the Brexit has unfortunately broken many links between our higher education establishments on either side of the Channel or the North Sea, we are starting together to build a bridge over the sea.”
The Mayor of Margate, Rob Yates, added: “The partnership between Esä and The Margate School is such an important collaboration which I and the people of Margate support and I wholeheartedly endorse.”